Over the weekend, the 5th & 6tth fatality, since the current copper price surge started, occured in the Mountain State.

A 22 year old man tried to steal some copper from a substation in the Southern part of the state. He became entangled in the live wires. His accomplice went & got the victims father who tried to free his son. Unfortunately, the father touched an energized conductor and also perished.

The incident left 600 AEP customers without power.

Know what, I don't mean to sound harsh but I have no sympathy for thieves. I will leave it at that..
Almost seems that copper is more valuable than gold...
Forget trying to break into Fort Knox, thats almost kids stuff now, its a bigger heist to rip off your local distrubution network LOL!

A.D

I agree with A.D.
I am more concerned about the 600 customers whose beer got warn when they lost power. I don't know why we think theft is such a minor crime ... when they are stealing from someone else. A theft from anyone is a theft from all of us.

The thief you catch in the act deserves to pay for not only everything you've ever had stolen but every lock you've ever had to purchase and every inconvenience you've ever suffered while planning your life around being able to watch your property.

As far as copper and gold go my wholesaler told me this morning they are getting closer. He claimed 1/0 THHN went up 23% since Thursday!!!

I too have no sympathy for victim #5, but it is a shame that the father got it when he tried to rescue his no good son. I'm starting to think that WV leads the nation in per capita electrocutions during copper theft.

I have also no sympathy for victim # 5. No loss there.

It costs all of us many extra dollars in our monthly powerbills for assets damaged by these copper thieves who stealing from the electricity networks.

They also put the general public at risk. When earthcables are removed from transformers or switchgear, exposed metal parts may become alive and could kill someone.

In certain cases with polemounted switchgear the protection could fail to detect an earth fault and keep live wires energised without tripping the feeder.

No sympathy for the father either. If he was a law abiding member of society, he would have called the authorities, not try to get his son out of trouble.
I hate to say this, but I feel like this loss of life may have a positive effect. Each time someone is killed like this, maybe just maybe others may see the danger. But I doubt it.

I also doubt it. Too many people "think" they know what they are doing and they will never get hurt. Most People just have no respect at all for electricity.

A note to all ....

I've edited this thread, "with an axe," because it was getting a bit off topic.

While I may personally share some of your sentiments ... really, now, do we need to try to 'out macho' the other guy?

We can all agree that stealing is bad, and that's why crimes are punished. We can also sympathize with the innocent victims of criminal acts.

Let's look at these theft reports as a 'heads up' in out lives .... so we can protect ourselves, our property, and our loved ones.

I don't know if the same figures are available in other countries for the copper price but this link takes you the the price in Australian Dollars (US$1.00 is around AU$1.10 today)

http://www.olex.com.au/Miscellaneous/Copper-Price.html

I went to the scrap metal yards a couple of months ago and was shocked to learn that bare copper was fetching $2.50 (USD) per pound. Unstripped wire (about 14 AWG and up) is getting $1.00/Lb. No more tossing short strips of wire in the trash. That's beer money!

The data you present suggests - there's not enough data to prove - that the copper prices are currently subject to a great deal of speculation.

If this is correct, the price has some more climbing to do - until the bubble bursts. Then we'll see a sudden drop, probably back to 2005 levels.

We saw something like this in the late 70's, when the Hunt brothers attempted to 'corner' the silver market. In the end, they were bankrupted by their 'can't fail' scheme. Copper is an even more readily available, more diversely produces, metal than silver ... and is thus more inherently safe from such manipulation.

One mans' disaster is often anothers' fortune. With every penny rise in the price of nearly any mineral, more mines here in Nevada re-open. Our mines are simply screaming for help - including electricians. (Especially Navy veteran 'electrician mates!')

Conversely, a return of prices to, say, 1980 levels would devastate Nevada as thoroughly as a plague epidemic.